How Many Licks?
by Illusionist-Tears
Summary: Kariya only had one real mission in life. He is centered on this one mission. His problem? His partner is constantly getting in the way. Can be seen as either Uzuki/Kariya pairing or friendship. Rated T to be safe, for the use of one or two curse words.


**Don't own TWEWY!**

**Anyway, this can be seen as Kariya/Uzuki friendship, or pairing. I really don't mind either way. I personally see it as a close friendship.**

Kariya only had one real mission in life.

It's a secret mission; one that even his superiors don't know about. So dedicated to it—so _fixated_ on completing this mission is he, that sometimes (or most of the time) he forgets to do his other missions, such as eliminating players. Yes, sometimes Kariya forgets to do his job as a Harrier.

Aw, well, that's what Uzuki is for.

But we're getting off track. Yes, this mission is very important to the usually laid-back reaper. This one took nearly all of his concentration.

When he awoke this morning, he came to a decision.

He was going to complete it. _Today_. He was going to prove that damn commercial wrong. Not that proving the commercial wrong was the reason he was doing it. Oh no, he was genuinely curious.

So, that morning, when Kariya walked down stairs into his kitchen, he did not go to the cupboard that was filled with his favorite bean paste lollipops. He walked straight past it, and a few of the other cupboards dedicated to several different brands or flavors of lollipops he preferred. He walked to the back cabinet, and took out a certain brand of American lollipops, decorated in colorful wrapping.

_Hmm…sour apple…interesting…_Kariya thought as he determinedly stuck the Tootsie Pop into his mouth. He knew eating a lollipop for breakfast was bad for him; Neku and Uzuki were always teasing him, saying his teeth were going to rot out. Fortunately, since he was technically dead, being a reaper, his outward and inward appearances weren't going to change anytime soon.

Counting the licks in his head, Kariya walked out the door.

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"Hey, Kariya," Neku said, sitting on the front step to the arcade as Kariya approached him. "You seem…different…today. Something on your mind?"

"I'm a man on a mission, Phones," Kariya replied casually, still counting in his head. _123…124…125…_

"I see…where's Uzuki?" The boy asked as Kariya handed him a lollipop he had had in his pockets. Neku looked at him for a second after examining the wrapper. "Hmm…I never took you as an Tootsie Pop kind of guy."

"As a matter of fact, I'm not," He replied. "And I don't know where Uzu is. Usually, she comes over to my house to drag me out of bed in the morning…"

_141…142…143…144…_

"Hmm…I'll try calling her, then," Neku said, taking out his phone and standing. "She may be over at your house."

"You may be right."

"Hey, Uzu," Neku spoke into his phone. "Okay, okay! Stop talking so fast! …You're where? …Hmm…yeah, he's here with me right now." Neku winced at something, "Yeah…I'll-I'll tell him that. Just meet us over here." Neku sighed and flipped the phone closed easily.

He turned to Kariya and said, "She's says she's going to murder you for being a stuck up asshole who doesn't think about other people." He sighed again and sat back down on the steps. "Those are her words, not mine."

"Right," Kariya said in his usual cheerfully relaxed way, sitting down next to Neku. This made Neku raise his eyebrows.

"Aren't you a bit worried? Sure, she probably won't hurt you, but she's at your house and knows where the lollipops are."

"Being worried takes too much effort," Kariya said with an easy laid-back smile. "Besides, there is nothing to worry about. I have a lot of secret hiding places for most of my lollipops, the cupboards only hold a fraction of them because going to that vault every day is annoying."

Neku rolled his eyes.

_161…162…163…164…_

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_224…225…226…227…_

Counting while doing things became natural. He could start to see the middle now, and he knew that soon he would get to the center, as he desired. The answer he desired.

"Hey, guys, sorry I'm late!" A pink-haired girl said as she shouldered her way through a throng of people to reach the two orange-haired males waiting in front of the arcade. "Someone didn't tell me that he managed to wake up by himself today so I accidentally wasted time by going out of my way to ensure he came."

The accusing glare she fixed on Kariya was deadly. He seemed not to notice. Neku rolled his eyes; typical.

"What can I say?" Kariya asked with a smile. "It was a spontaneous decision. I forgot to call you."

"More like it was too 'troublesome'," Uzuki responded scathingly, flexing her fingers into air quotes. "You and I both know you don't make spontaneous decisions, Kariya. You're just lazy."

"And there's the second blow. How will he recover? Kariya, no comments?" Neku asked, narrating. The boy truly had to be bored if he was commentating their fights. But, in his defense, they were supposed to meet up around fifteen minutes ago. Kariya knew that Neku, despite his better judgement, always arrived early. Being late just didn't compute in his brain.

"No use arguing with the truth, Phones. A fact you should live by."

"Right," Neku responded, rolling his eyes again.

_245…246…247…248…249…_

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"Kariya," Uzuki said suddenly, tearing her eyes away from Neku on the DDR machine. She had just lost to him again, and was watching him kick all the other players' collective asses.

"Yes, Uzu?"

"That's not a bean paste lollipop, is it?"

He raised a curious eyebrow. "As a matter of fact, it's not. Why ever do you ask?"

She ignored his question. Her face was carefully neutral. "What kind of lollipop is it?"

"Tootsie Pop, why?"

"What flavor?" She ignored the question again. Hmm…strange…

"Sour App—" Before he could finish, the lollipop was ripped out of his mouth and taken away. He gave a yelp of pain and licked his abused teeth gingerly.

"What was that for?"

She didn't answer; she had already stuffed the lollipop in her mouth. There was a loud crunch sound and she handed the clean lollipop stick back to him. His jaw hung open as he watched her eat it.

All his work just went down the drain.

"Thanks, Kariya. Sour Apple is my favorite." He sighed as she skipped off to go play DDR.

How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

The world may never know.

Ta-dah! Just something I came up with in biology. Anyway, this is to keep you guys satisfied until chapter 3 of TWEWM is up. I'm suffering from writer's block, at the moment, concerning chapter 3. And I have very little free time because of school. I promise I won't abandon the story, though.


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